Best Texas books to read right now

Saturday

Jul 22, 2017 at 12:01 AMSep 23, 2018 at 12:07 PM

Texas birds, Texas musicians, Texas media stars, Texas festivals and a guide to the Texas Capitol stack up on our state shelves
this week.

“Book of Texas Birds.” Gary Clark with photographs by Kathy Adams Clark. Texas A&M Press. For some of us, there are never too many Texas bird
books. This one might not fit as easily into a backpack as snugly some of the more traditional guides — not to mention its
weight at more than two pounds — but the clarity and beauty inside more than make up for its relative girth. It seems manufactured
to last, too, another crucial argument in its favor, since it will get a lot of use. Gary Clark’s easy journalistic style
— he writes a column for the Houston Chronicle — nicely matches Kathy Adam Clark’s generous images. We plan to keep it handy
whenever possible.

MORE ABOUT TEXAS BIRDS:
“One More Warbler.”

“When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph and Its Aftermath.” Stuart Isacoff. Knopf. Curious how Van Cliburn mania comes in waves. Texans are particularly prone to flights of fancy about
their native son who won the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War in 1958, then was
lionized around the world, including a ticker tape parade in New York. He is now the subject of two new books, this one by
piano expert Stuart Isacoff, who doesn’t stint on the socio-political context, and “Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story —
How one Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War” by Nigel Cliff. Isacoff is particularly good at describing Cliburn the
performer both at his peak and during his declining years. We were lucky enough to hear him several times during that autumnal
period. The freshness had vanished, but never the glamour.

“It’s News to Me.” Olga Campos Benz. Self-published. One special treat that awaits those who ply Austin’s social circuit is to land at a table
next to media savvy Olga Campos Benz. Not only is she a first-rate storyteller, but she’s got ripe stories to tell from her
years as a top Texas broadcast journalist and afterwards, when she became one of Austin’s most visible volunteers and activists.
She’s met a crazy character or two along the way. This brisk, fluent novel is informed by all that experience. Now, I can’t
tell you how much of this story is based on real people — the same is true with Rob Giardinelli’s sweet and recently published
society memoir, “Being in the Room” — but I can confirm some parallels between the fictional photojournalist of the novel
and flesh-and-blood husband Kevin Benz. This volume confirms the instinct: If you’ve got a novel in you, please write it.

“Cornyation: San Antonio’s Outrageous Fiesta Tradition.” Amy L. Stone. Trinity University Press. Fiesta is one of those singular things that sets San Antonio almost completely apart
from its sister Texas cities. One aspect of this annual holds special meaning for the state’s LGBT community. Fiesta itself
goes back to the 1890s and, like Mardis Gras, its sprawling celebration is staged by not one, but dozens of local groups.
That structure generated isolated pockets of social exclusion, while allowing a broader cross-section of the population to
participate in novel ways. Cornyation is a drag spoof of Fiesta’s debutante Coronation of the Queen of the Alamo. It goes
back at least to the early 1950s and was embraced as part of the accepted party landscape. Author Amy Stone has fun with this
phenomenon, while taking it seriously on a sociological level. The pictures are out of this world!

“Legends & Lore of the Texas Capitol”

“Legends & Lore of the Texas Capitol.” Mike Cox. History Press. What would we do without Mike Cox? The journalist and author had published more than 3o books, a
great many of them about Texas and its history. Here he delves into the enduring myths and verifiable facts about one the
state’s most charismatic shrines, the Texas Capitol. Cox was working for our newspaper in 1983 when a fire that started in
the lieutenant governor’s office nearly brought down the building. In response, our leaders lovingly restored the building
and the grounds while adding a clever underground extension to alleviate horrific overcrowding in what had become a firetrap.
At the same time, almost everything we assumed about the Capitol’s legacy was reexamined. Cox is very good at sorting out
the legends and lore, making this an essential read for any Texas history advocate.